Free Unwrapped by Chantilly White

roughly into
the lock and let himself in.
    "Mia!" he yelled. "It's me."
    She didn't answer. Beeping on his right made him pause long
enough to disengage her security alarm before tromping through the lower rooms
to verify she wasn't downstairs. Family room, kitchen, nook, dining room,
office. Bathroom. He even checked inside the garage and, because it was there,
the hall closet.
    Nope.
    He took the stairs two at a time and called her name again
as he walked through her bedroom door.
    Empty.
    Frowning now, he turned in a slow circle to survey her room.
Her purse had been on the kitchen counter, her cell and keys next to it, so she
hadn't gone for a walk or left with anyone else. Mia never went anywhere
without her two-ton handbag.
    The first tiny niggle of worry made an appearance—what
if something had happened to her? He strode back to the landing, and that's
when he saw it—the wavering light of candle glow emitting beneath her
bathroom door. Relief released the tension in his muscles. She was in the tub.
    Of course. Girls and their baths.
    Derrick pivoted on his heel and headed back to Mia's room,
dropping into the giant denim-covered beanbag chair on the floor next to her
bed. He toed off his shoes and grabbed one of her fitness magazines off her
nightstand and prepared to wait.
    His own resounding snore woke him with a jerk. The magazine
slid off his chest to rustle to the floor, and he brought a hand up to rub at
the crick in his neck. Bleary-eyed, he checked his watch. Swore. Over an hour.
    No telling how long Mia had been in there before he'd
arrived, but he knew his girl—she was a marathon bubble bather. She could
soak for three hours, longer if she was reading. Or sulking.
    Not tonight.
    Scrubbing his hands over his face, Derrick shook off the
late nap, replaced her magazine on her bedside stack and unkinked his muscles
one at a time as he rose. Recalling Mia's hands moving over his bare skin in
long, slow strokes, a grin spread across his lips.
    It was time to put his new plan in motion.
    At the bathroom door, he paused a moment to gather his
thoughts. Banishing the echo of Jeff's and Greg's teasing voices, he
straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and knocked.
    No answer.
    He knocked again, louder. "Mia?"
    When she failed to respond, he tried the doorknob. It turned
in his hand, and he stepped into a steamy, fragrant female paradise lit by
clusters of fluttering candles.
    Her bedroom was sunny, warm and welcoming, feminine without
a load of frills, as was the rest of the house. He'd always been comfortable
hanging out in her space. But her bathroom was a pampered princess's pleasure
pit, so girly it made his teeth ache.
    In the normal course of things, he avoided this particular
room. Just stepping across the threshold could make his family jewels crawl
halfway up to his stomach in defense, but tonight. . . tonight there was a
naked Mia inside. And they needed to talk.
    Several shades of pink and a pale, spring green exploded
everywhere, from the linens and rugs on the cool tile floor, to the
flower-papered walls and the vast array of mysterious bottles and pots of
potions on the marble counter. Sheer, lacy white fabric framed the single
window, the shower doors, and draped the bath like the curtains on a queen's
canopied bed. Pink roses and sparkling jewels on a twining silk vine topped
them all, turning the small room into what Mia called her faerie bower.
    She'd roped him into hanging the damn things himself, a few
months after she'd moved into the condo. He half expected a faerie to spring
from one of the framed prints on the walls and force him out. No men allowed.
    Mia reclined in her large oval tub, mounds of bubbles
concealing all but her head, the tops of her creamy shoulders, and the tips of
her toes peeping through the foam at the far end of the bath. A purple-satin
sleep mask covered her eyes. Headphones, connected to her hot-pink iPod sitting
in a decoratively scrolled metal tray on the